


All These Woes

by EarthboundJedi



Category: Trollhunters (Cartoon)
Genre: ALL THE ANGST, Angst, Angst and Feels, Blood and Injury, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-07 14:35:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17367695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EarthboundJedi/pseuds/EarthboundJedi
Summary: A collection of Trollhunters/Tales of Arcadia angsty ficlets. Because ANGST.(originally posted on tumblr)Note: Rated 'Mature' due to some pretty serious adult themes. I've tried not to be too graphic, but I figured I'd bump up the rating just in case.





	1. Stony Limits

“Shhh, hold still,” Jim murmured, pressing a damp cloth to his girlfriend’s forehead. “You’re bleeding.”

She furrowed her brow, making it difficult for Jim to apply pressure to the wound. “It’s just a scrape. I’ll be fine _._ ”

“Claire, that’s not a scrape, it’s a _cut_. And a deep one, at that,” he frowned. He took the cloth and dipped it into the nearby pool, wringing it out before reapplying pressure. A few yards away, the temporary healing dwell opened up to the outside world, where shades of green came to life in the early morning light.

_I should have never let her come. New Trollmarket isn’t safe for humans, not while it’s still under construction…_

“Jim?”

“Hmm?” He kept his eyes trained on her head injury.

“It’s not your fault, you know.”

He didn’t respond, pressing his lips into a thin line - well, as much of a line as possible when one has fangs sticking out of their mouth.

Claire sighed and continued, “I should have known better than to walk below you while you were carving out that alcove.”

Jim still refused to look her in the eye. “This is a pretty nasty cut, Claire. And it could have been _worse._ You could have -”

“ _Don’t_ ,” she stopped him, gently grabbing his forearm. “I’ll just pick up a hard hat next time I go into town. And some more bandages. Problem solved.”

“Problem _not_ solved,” he suddenly snapped, fighting to swallow the growl building in the back of his throat. “That doesn’t change the fact that it’s _too dangerous_ for you here. No amount of protective gear will change that.”

“So what, you don’t think I can take care of myself?” she pulled back and crossed her arms.

“No, not that. I just… need to protect you.”

“Because you don’t think I can take care of myself,” she repeated.

“No, Claire, that’s not it at all, I _swear_!”

“Then what? What is it, then?” she stared him down, daring him to answer.

When he looked at her, his heart caught in his throat. Here she was - paler than she should be, with dark circles hanging under her eyes, and now _bleeding_ , of all things - looking so breakable and so out of place amongst all the rock and stone. She deserved better things, _softer_ things, where there were normal sleep cycles and sunlight and food that wasn’t always cooked over a campfire.

She deserved a boyfriend that didn’t constantly put her in so much danger.

His frustration building, Jim wasn’t sure how to voice his concerns. And then, in one horrible moment, those concerns took the form of two horrible sentences that came tumbling out of his mouth before he could stop them:

“You’re _human_! You don’t belong here!”

The shock on her face quickly morphed into anger colored with betrayal. “I _thought_ I belonged with _you,_ ” she retorted, snatching the cloth out of Jim’s hand as she stood up. “Guess I was wrong.”

He watched, frozen with despair, as she stormed out of the shadow of the cave and into the sunlight.

Where she belonged.

And where he could not follow.


	2. Can I Go Forward When My Heart is Here?

“You know what, Blink?” Jim panted, feet pounding against the forest floor as he ran. Blinky was barely keeping up with his long strides, but fear of what was hurtling through the brush behind them kept the duo moving forward. “I  _ really _ miss fighting goblins!”

“A mutual sentiment, I assure you!” Blinky gasped. Jim glanced over his shoulder to smile at his mentor, confused when all six of the troll’s eyes suddenly grew wide. “Master Jim, ahead! Look out!”

Jim jerked his attention forward again, only to find they were quickly running out of forest.

And the sun hadn’t set yet.

Jim tried to stop himself, but he simply had too much momentum. He desperately grabbed for one of the remaining nearby trees, fingers scraping through the bark before tumbling head-over-heels towards the edge of the woods. Disoriented, he cried out when a sudden flash of intense pain engulfed his right leg, “ _ Aaaggh _ !”

Four hands were instantly on him, dragging him back into the safety of the shadows. Jim opened his eyes as Blinky propped him up against the base of a tree, noticing first the deeply concerned expression Blinky wore. And then he noticed his leg - what little skin he had exposed was starting to crack and turn a dusty grey, and even his armor had lost its metal sheen in favor of a stony hue. Ironically, if he had still been wearing just his jeans, we would have been better shielded from the sun’s harsh rays.

But Jim didn’t have time to lament the shortcomings of Merlin’s “protective” gear, noticing the shadowy shapes beyond Blinky’s shoulder looming closer by the second. “Quick, Blinky, help me up!”

Blinky set a pair of hands on Jim’s shoulders and shook his head, “Master Jim, you are in no condition to fight. A single misstep and you will surely lose your leg. Stay here, I  _ insist _ .”

“But Blinky, I can help!” Jim glanced again at the incoming threat, now close enough that the energy weapons of the bounty hunters were faintly visible. “If I sit here, I’ll just be a sitting duck!”

“It is of no consequence whether you are a duck or a half-troll; I will  _ not  _ allow you to be taken by those intergalactic  _ scum-buckets _ .”

“Blink…”

“ _ Jim _ ,” Blinky looked down at him in earnest, “my dear boy, you are far too precious to lose. To the world… and to me.”

“Well,  _ I’d  _ rather lose a leg if it means we both make it back to Trollmarket,” Jim scoffed, trying to quell the sense of alarm rising in his chest.

The six-eyed troll calmly shook his head again as he straightened up, turning so that he was facing the approaching bounty hunters. “I shall wrest one of those transportation devices from the hunters. The moment I toss it to you,  _ get out of here. _ ”

“Blinky, I’m not going  _ anywhere _ without you!” Jim protested. He tried to push himself up off the ground, crying out in pain the second he tried to move his leg. A large crack appeared on the surface of his knee.

Blinky winced at the sound, somberly looking back over his shoulder at Jim as he defiantly held out his staff in front of him. “I  _ will _ protect you, Master Jim…”

The bounty hunters drew closer to their quarry, hissing and snarling and sporting gleeful, pointed grins as they raised their weapons.

“... even if it kills me.”


	3. Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

“I… I don’t feel so good…” Jim groaned, staggering towards Claire. One step. Two steps. Then he stumbled and collapsed at her feet.

Claire immediately dropped to the ground, letting her staff clatter beside her as she moved to cradle Jim’s head. One of his horns had a huge chip in it and a deep gash adorned the side of his face, the skin around it already starting to change from stony blue to ashen grey. There was a dark, distant look creeping into his expression, occasionally illuminated by flashes of green and yellow from the nearby battle.

“Jim…” she murmured, stroking his scruff of hair. “Jim, look at me.  _ Please. _ ”

He drew a few short, rattling breaths. Then he blinked, and eventually a pair of blue eyes looked up at her. “Hey,” he attempted a smirk. In any other situation, she probably would have giggled at him. But not today.

“I need to get you back to the Heartstone.”

Jim coughed, “ _ You _ need… to get back out there.” He searched for her with his unarmored hand, clasping her hand tight when she reached for him. “Those two… are gonna destroy the world. You have to stop them.”

“But Jim -”

“It’s not my fight, Claire. I  _ can’t  _ fight, I… I don’t stand a chance,” he grinned pathetically. “But  _ you… _ ” he trailed off into a coughing fit that caused his whole upper body to spasm.

“Don’t say that, Jim,” she whispered as she brushed a tear from his cheek, unsure if it was his tear or hers. “If anyone has the right to fight, it’s you. After everything they’ve done to you…” she sniffed. “Now come on, I have to get you back…”

Jim shook his head slightly when she tried to help lift him back to his feet. Claire felt the knot in her stomach tighten as she noticed the grey spreading across his skin.  “Claire, leave me... I’ll be fine. You have to go.”

If he wasn’t already injured, Claire swore she would have slapped him. “You.. are not…  _ fine, _ ” she grunted, dragging him only an inch or so with each tug. “You need… to heal!”

He had another coughing fit, forcing her to pause. “Claire,” he rasped, “ _ Go.  _ Tobes… or someone… will find me...”

“I am  _ not  _ going to leave you here!” She gritted her teeth and adjusted her stance, only to stumble when the ground shook.

“You have to…” he insisted. “Now _go…_ and save the world.”

He was right. She  _ hated  _ when he was right. At least, she did when it came to stuff like this. Claire choked back a sob as she gently lowered him back down to the ground. “ _ Fine _ . But for the record,” she murmured, “ _ you’re  _ my world. So no dying today, okay?”

Her heart skipped a beat when he tried to crack a lopsided smile. “I’ll try, milady.”


	4. Leave Me to My Grief

“Thanks again for letting me stay here,” the words tumbled out of Claire’s mouth as she poured herself another glass of wine.

“Of course,” Toby replied, watching her carefully from the opposite side of the table. “Darci and I agree, you can stay with us as long as you need to. But, uh… Claire?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re… kind of worried about you.  _ I’m  _ worried about you.” When Toby paused, Claire peered at him over the rim of her glass. “You’ve, uh… been drinking a lot, lately.”

She looked back down at the contents of her glass, as if somehow the answers to all her unspoken problems lay hidden beneath the surface of the dark red liquid. Then, flatly, she stated, “I’m grieving. Therefore, I’m drinking.”

“I get it, Claire,  _ believe me _ ,” he quickly responded, his voice cracking slightly as he finished the sentence. “But… you’ve been drinking...  _ a lot _ ,” he emphasized. “It’s not healthy.”

“Red wine is s’posed to be good for you.”

“In  _ moderation _ ,” Toby calmly countered. “And I know you went through that bottle of tequila in just a few days.”

Claire took another swig of wine, then silently lowered the glass and resumed staring into it. A piece of her mind was nagging at her, telling her that there was probably some truth in Toby’s words. That all this drinking wouldn’t actually fix anything.

But it helped her forget about the pain.

It helped her ignore that sick, hollow feeling in her stomach.

If something was capable of doing that, how unhealthy could it really be?

“Claire?”

She slowly sipped on her wine some more.

“Claire,  _ please. _ Talk to me.”

“‘Bout what?” she grumbled, lips still pressed to the rim of her glass.

Toby shrugged. “ _ Anything _ . It’s been two weeks, now, and we’ve barely talked at all.”

“‘Cause there’s not much to talk about.”

It was a blatant lie, and they both knew it.

After a few moments, Toby sighed, “I miss him, too, you know… So,  _ so  _ much.”

Unprepared for any sort of conversation, a sob caught in the back of Claire’s throat. She made her best attempt to wash it down, but a few unwanted tears threatened to run down her cheek and into her glass as she drank. That wouldn’t do. Setting down the wine glass, she clumsily wiped at her face with the back of her sleeve.

Toby continued talking, “I remember... even when we were, like, eight years old, Jim kept running off trying to find some sort of adventure. He got himself stuck in a tree,” he snorted, “ _ more _ than once. Guess now he’s got a whole new sort of adventure ahead of him…” He brushed a tear from the corner of his eye. “Do you think he’s doing okay in the Void? Kinda wish there was a way we could visit. Or talk to him, at least. God knows there’s still so much I wanna tell him.”

It was too much. Claire’s current barrier of alcohol wasn’t thick enough to keep the unexpected onslaught of emotions at bay: grief, denial, anger, even fear... but most of all, a profound sense of loss that carved out her center and left her feeling hollow. She quickly drained the rest of her glass, earning herself another concerned look from Toby as she pushed the empty glass to the side.

“Claire…”

Throwing him a half-hearted glare, she pushed off the table and wobbled to her feet. The effects of the evening's consumption were rapidly catching up with her now that she was upright. Only mildly aware of Toby's protests and noises of concern through the buzzing fog clouding her head, she stumbled off towards the back of the house and into the guest room. She could barely focus her vision, but her feet knew the way.

The next thing Claire remembered, she was on the floor, her back against the door of her temporary room. Apparently, she must have sat down once she closed the door behind her. Or she had fallen over. Both were equally likely. It didn't really matter.  _ Nothing  _ really mattered anymore.

Jim was  _ gone _ .

Wiping away more tears, she hugged her knees tightly to her chest. The ache in her core grew more painful by the minute. She sobbed a little as she stared at the other side of the room where she'd abandoned her purse next to the bed.

Where a faint, blue glow pulsed in secret from the depths of a partially open pocket.


	5. Dry Sorrow Drinks Our Blood

“Fuck off and let me drink my emotions away,” Claire glowered.

“Well, 'hi’ to you, too,” Toby replied, sliding onto the barstool next to her. She hunched over the glass of…  _ whatever  _ she was drinking so she could avoid eye contact. But her friend, ever the persistent one, commented, “You know, I’ve been to every bar in Arcadia looking for you.”

“So, what, all three?”

“This is number twelve, actually,” Toby shrugged, flagging down the bartender to order a beer. “Would have saved me a lot of time if you had just answered your phone.”

“Ever think I didn’t answer because I don’t want company?”

“Claire,” Toby sighed, lightly placing a calloused hand on her shoulder, “I’m worried about you. Ever since Jim -”

“Don't,” she shrugged him off, then made a show of downing what was left in her glass. The liquid burned as it went down; it wasn't exactly pleasant, but at least it was  _ some  _ sort of feeling. “I don't want to talk about it.”

“You don't want to talk about it here, you don't want to talk about it at home,” Toby shifted to try to look her in the eye, “so where  _ do  _ you want to talk?”

“Nowhere. I don't want to talk.  _ Period _ .”

Toby sighed as he recentered himself on his barstool, taking a swig of the beer that had been placed in front of him. He was silent for a while, allowing the low buzz of the half-empty bar to occupy Claire's thoughts again. Occasionally a word or two from a conversation across the room would stand out, but it mostly served as distracting background noise so she didn't have to fill the space with her own thoughts.

Eventually Toby spoke again. “I get it. You're still grieving,” he said in a calm, comforting tone. “But Jim would want us to keep moving forward, you know? He wouldn't want our lives to stop just because his, uh….did.”

Somewhere inside - deep,  _ deep _ inside - she knew that. He was right: it's what Jim would have wanted.

And yet…

“I can’t,” she mumbled softly.

“Sure you can, with enough time,” he encouraged. “And I’ll be here to help with whatever you need.”

“No, Toby, I… I  _ can’t, _ ” she shook her head. “I can’t do it.” She took a hesitant breath and, right as Toby as about to voice another protest, she reached into the inside pocket of her jacket.

And solemnly placed the amulet in front of her on the counter.

“Oh, hey, I was wondering where that ended up!” Toby mused, fondly poking at the enchanted metal disk. Then she watched as the realization crept into his expression. “Wait… so that means… Claire,  _ you’re… _ ?”

Claire bit her lip, unsure of how to respond despite the answer already hanging obviously in the air.

“Oh my god, why didn’t you tell me?” Toby excitedly started. “That’s… wow, that’s  _ great _ ! You’ll make an awesome Trollhunter!”

“No, Toby, I…  _ can’t.  _ I can’t do this,” she groaned.

“But what about -”

“Every time I look at it, or feel it in my pocket, or wake up in the middle of the night and see it glowing from the other side of the room,”  Claire struggled to keep from choking up as she spoke, “all I think of is Jim. And how he’s not here. All because of -”

“Shhh,” Toby cut her off, gently placing a hand on her shoulder. “It’s  _ not your fault _ .”

“Oh yeah? Then how come  _ I’m _ here and Jim isn’t?” Claire ducked her head to stare at the amulet, feeling the sorrow and bitterness rising in her chest. “I should have listened to him,” she mumbled, “I wasn’t ready, not for a spell of that magnitude…”

“Hey, you were only trying to fend off that horde of bounty hunters,” he assured her. “Which, by the way, totally worked.”

Her next words were barely above a whisper, “But at what cost?”

“Claire,” Toby turned to her and gave her a sobering look, “General what’s-his-face -”

“Morando.”

“Right, General Morando. He’s still out there, Claire. We know he’s plotting to invade Earth. The world’s going to need  _ us  _ to help protect it, now more than ever. The world needs its Trollhunter.”

“Too bad its Trollhunter is  _ dead _ ,” she snapped, abruptly getting up from her barstool. As she caught her balance, she fished out a wad of cash and tossed it onto the counter, next to the amulet, to cover her tab. When she turned to leave, Toby tried to stop her.

“Wait, Claire, don’t -!”

But she was already weaving past tables and walking briskly to the door, turning up her collar as she stepped out into the night. Tears that had started blurring her vision quickly spilled over, running down her face and dripping onto her jacket. 

_ I’m not the Trollhunter. _

A teardrop glanced off the side of her pocket, the pocket that once again held the familiar weight she was now cursed to bear.

_ I  _ **_can’t_ ** _ be the Trollhunter. _


End file.
